How trackers works - looking for explanation

[joeyyyy]

Cant find any easy explanation for beginners how trackers work, meanings of terms, what do you need to track your visitors and where to find it, etc.

I would like to understand it better so the setting up can take a minutes... not days

If you know about something please share. Thank you!

 

[Graybeard]

Understanding How Affiliate Tracking Works - Nick Lenihan
Have a look at this.

Trackers are a cobbled together product (software) by nature because each tracker product is programmed independently and interlinks (communicates) with various other networks' reporting --- there is no single standard.

IMHO, what is needed is a Tracker Boot-camp thread/or (subforum) to address separate issues with each tracker as they come up. This should be free of mindless promotion like me-too comments/replies that do not serve the specific question.

Your same question is seen repeatedly for the reason of tracker complexity for persons starting out.

 

[Taylor@Kintura]

This could easily be an entire book. If you have specific questions just ask.

In short, what's being "tracked" is the performance of an ad campaign. The goal is to optimize the campaign to run as profitably as possible. In order to do so you need to know what's working (or what isn't). Each traffic source has different targeting (and placement) rules available. Ignore what can't be optimized.

Pick a Traffic Source and an Affiliate Network, for instance, here's ExoClick and Traffic Company. This url has a tracking click "timeline" that will explain the tracking loop.

Generally, traffic sources provide URL tokens (or URL macros) to tell you a bit more about each click you pay for. With these tokens, the traffic source will tell your tracker a few groups of information. Regarding the click itself they'll usually indicate how much it cost you. Some will provide you with country/region/device/browser tokens but your tracker probably already has this so they're often skipped. The most important tokens tend to be those related to placement: Publisher, Widget, etc. This is because "optimizing" involves only buying traffic that is most likely to convert.

In the Exoclick example, you'd want the token {src_hostname}, for instance, so you could see which domains were the best at sending conversions for that campaign. You'd also want {variation_id} so you could view a report on which "creative" (banner/copy/teaser/etc) was working. Suppose you had a "{src_hostname}" called "bloodsuckingparasite.com" sending $78 worth of traffic with 0 conversions. You'd march over to the Exoclick campaign admin and block any future traffic from bloodsuckingparasite.com. As you continue working with Exoclick, you might start blocking bloodsuckingparasite.com right off the bat. I call that a "Traffic Source Level Blacklist" or a TSBL for short. Your tracker should let you maintain traffic source level marks like this.

Keep in mind, I'm using Exoclick as an example because they don't obfuscate their publishers. A lot of traffic sources do. So instead of "bloodsuckingparasite.com" it says "burnet-walrus" -- here is an actual Zeropark "Source" report (from a profitable camp, too )

There's also day parting. Again, if your traffic source supports it (which zeropark and exoclick both do), you could optimize when your ads run so that you're paying *only* for profitable time periods. This is literally the same, profitable campaign above, but imagine how profitable it would be if I only ran it on Sun/Mon?!

Hope that helps.

 

[Taylor@Kintura]

Trackers are a cobbled together product (software) by nature because each tracker product is programmed independently and interlinks (communicates) with various other networks' reporting --- there is no single standard.

I don't know of any tracking platforms that are a "cobbled together product" -- In the world of software development this vertical scores pretty high in cyclomatic complexity. Yet, people are impressed by Google Analytics and Mixpanel. Now those are cobbled together

 

[Taylor@Kintura]

Ahhh okay I think I misunderstood your point because cobbled together has negative connotations (or at least connotes disapproval by definition).

 

[Graybeard]

That's your opinion maybe -- that ad network and affiliate network and the users ad delivery network are NOT in your vertical. That is what I meant by cobbled -- the components to the result.
Maybe, a better word is amalgamated but if one outside component does not work the resulting work is incomplete (unalmagamted or uncobbled or unsynchronized) or just wrong.

Then it's figure pointing time from ALL the component owners at each other as well as the user which accomplishes little or nothing.
Doesn't matter to the end user -- he just wants the result.

 

[Phill AdsBridge]

Hi @joeyyyy !

I'll try to answer your questions as shortly as possible)

1) In general, tracker is a tool to track visits, clicks, conversions of your affiliate marketing campaigns. Tracker also shows you an additional information about where your visitor came from, what is his browser, was he a bot or real person.
Many trackers are also a TDS - traffic distribution system. It means that you can distribute your traffic among your offers according to special conditions. For example, if you need only American people from California with IOS to visit your offer on Monday between 12:00 PM and 6:00 PM you can set it up thanks to TDS system

2) Here you can find a list of most common terms, like, what campaign, offer, CTR etc is. Just check the User Guide
3) To track your visitors you need to set up a campaign in a tracker
4) You find visitors on a traffic sources or attracting organic traffic

If you need any clarification, I would be glad to help

 

[joeyyyy]

Thank you all for your help!

@Phill AdsBridge

Thank you too, I am glad you have posted here. Here is just an example of lack of information in general. I am using your Trial and after few days I have found out I can not use your tracker when using ClickBank network because they dont share data with any external tools That´s fine, I am learning. Need to find another network I guess.

 

[Phill AdsBridge]

Thank you all for your help!

@Phill AdsBridge

Thank you too, I am glad you have posted here. Here is just an example of lack of information in general. I am using your Trial and after few days I have found out I can not use your tracker when using ClickBank network because they dont share data with any external tools That´s fine, I am learning. Need to find another network I guess.

I'm pretty sure I know you

Hope to have a productive cooperation in the future.
Wish you a good luck with CPA business)